Tuesday, 23 October 2012

Countdown To 007: Licence To Kill, Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies

My Countdown To 007 introduces another new Bond today after Timothy Dalton departs in one of the series' most contentious entries. Licence To Kill is a personal favourite of mine, drawing more inspiration from Fleming than many detractors give it credit for and featuring an outstanding performance from the lead man. When Pierce Brosnan took over six years later, his run in the role was a mixed bag but his opening movie, Goldeneye, was a perfect reintroduction to the character after the series was put on hiatus by legal troubles at parent studio MGM.

These write-ups have been republished from Flixist's ongoing Across The Bond feature,
where fellow Bond nerd Matthew Razak (defiantly anti-Dalton) and I go through the series one by
one. The feature will look at Brosnan's two remaining movies tomorrow, then Craig's two on Thursday before the Skyfall review on Friday.

LICENCE TO KILL

Licence To Kill is my fourth favourite Bond movie, propping up such esteemed company as Goldfinger, From Russia and On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
It's also the most divisive entry in the series, going darker than
any before or since. For those raised by the flippancy of a Moore or
Brosnan, it's undoubtedly a culture shock and was the first Bond to
be given a '15' certificate in the UK rather than the customary 'PG'.
By today's standards it's ridiculously tame for that rating, even in the
uncut version available on more recent DVD / Blu-Ray releases. That
said, it's still a Bond movie where the main villain whips his lover, Bond's
oldest friend is dismembered by a shark, a sleazy businessman's head
explodes in a decompression chamber, and a henchman falls
ankles-first into a rock crusher. Most of it is implied rather than
explicit, but still a long way from Octopussy.

I understand those who yearn for more family-friendly fare from their Bonds, but as Timothy Dalton points out in the excellent documentary Everything Or Nothing, the character was never created for a young audience. Licence goes further than Ian Fleming did in its violence, but not by much. Leiter's mutilation is a straight lift from the Live And Let Die novel,
right down to the sadistic joke left with him as a warning ('He
disagreed with something that ate him'). Fleming was happy
detailing the nastier side of Bond's job, proven by how tame the torture scene in Daniel Craig's Casino Royale is
compared to its prolonged equivalent in the novel, where there's no
hint of such mitigating humour as the 'scratching my balls' line.

In any
case, Licence's violence is hardly needless: it establishes the stakes of a deeply personal revenge mission for Bond,
and gives Sanchez credibility as a Latin American drug lord rather than
pandering to the censors by paring him down, which would have made inappropriate light of a serious criminal problem.
Is the underworld an appropriate fit for Bond to begin with? Well, Fleming featured the mob several times in his novels, with Bond getting a good beating from them in Diamonds Are Forever,
and the Dalton movies are nothing if not timely. It sits perfectly well
with me, but it's hardly surprising that more casual fans find it
excessive compared to what they're used to from the series.

The
most ridiculous argument is that the movie isn't 'Bondian' enough.
Disregarding the Fleming influences already mentioned - and the Milton
Krest character is named after a similarly brash American entrepreneur
from short story The Hildebrand Rarity, who whips his wife in the
same manner Sanchez does his mistress Lupe here - the movie features
some of the series' most ambitiously staged set-pieces,
all hitting the heights of badassery which Dalton made his trademark.
The pre-credits sequence sees he and Felix capture Sanchez by 'going
fishing' for his plane before it enters Cuban airspace, then skydiving
to the chapel where Leiter is due to be married: a ridiculously cool way
to enter a wedding, not to mention pre-empting The Dark Knight Rises by almost a quarter of a century. Later, Bond escapes an
underwater death by harpooning a departing seaplane, waterskiing behind
until catching up, then ditching the pilot and flying to safety. The
climactic battle, meanwhile, takes place atop and inside a number of
Kenworth tankers, which Bond systematically
destroys in a series of elaborately staged stunts, including pulling a
wheelie and avoiding a missile by tilting onto one side of wheels.

The best thing about these sequences is how difficult it is to imagine Bond getting out of them, even though the pieces of his escape have been carefully laid out beforehand. Dalton's Bond takes
more damage, physical and emotional, than his predecessors, but is good
at his job because of his quick, rational thinking. Unlike Quantum Of Solace, which turned Bond into
an uncharacteristic psychopath for half the movie, Dalton reacts to his
friend's murder with a show of devastating, calculated professionalism.
(Dalton's Bond would own Liam Neeson's Mr. Taken every
day of the week). He's guided by a desire to see justice done, not just targeting the few men responsible but systematically playing out
a plan to take down the whole organisation responsible for his friend's dismemberment. He's burning with righteous anger,
but never lets it impair his judgment: one by one, he brings Sanchez'
lieutenants down, playing on the main villain's paranoia as his trap
closes.

Despite his talent for the job at hand, this Bond is
unmistakeably human. Dalton is the best actor to ever play the part and
has some lovely scenes leading up to Leiter's fate. Tracy gets a
beautifully understated nod early on, foreshadowing Leiter's soon to be
curtailed marriage and justifying Bond's anger
at what happened to him also happening to his best friend. In the scene
where he discovers Leiter's unconscious, dismembered body, Dalton takes a
short breath to steel himself against having his worst fears confirmed
inside the bodybag lying on the sofa, perhaps the finest moment of
acting in the series. Dalton's Bond is often
compared to Craig's, but Dalton is more fully rounded and always guided
by an inherent morality where Craig can too often seem more preoccupied
by his own issues than the job at hand. Don't get me wrong, Craig did
stunning work in Casino, but while he brings back many aspects of
Fleming's character, he's too often out of control - from M and himself
- to be as close a match as Dalton. In the You Only Live Twice novel, where Bond is
heavily grieving for his dead wife and handed an opportunity to avenge
her, he rallies himself to channel his anger into getting the job done.
That's Dalton all over.

He's helped by a strong supporting cast.
Davi's Sanchez has a fascinating code of honour deepening him beyond the
one-dimension drug lord sterotype, always putting loyalty ahead of
money. Benicio Del Toro (yes, that one) is terrifying as his enfant terrible sidekick
Dario, who is unusually competent for a henchman and uses the actor's
mad-eyed stare to great effect. Pam Bouvier is a standard all-action
tough girl, but Carey Lowell plays her with enough sly humour to make
her mark, even if her jealous streak is one of the movie's few bum
notes - the other is Bond's constant attempts to
send his allies home, which gets tiresome after the second argument.

Q
gets some welcome time in the field, giving series legend Desmond
Llewellyn his biggest role to date and leading to a hilarious sight gag
where he discards a gadget with the same insouciance he so often
criticised 007 for. Lupe Lamora's tortured moll shows a rebellious
streak in the face of terrible consequences which makes her sympathetic
rather than simpering, while crooked televangelist Professor Joe
Butcher, played with joyful sliminess by Vegas legend Wayne Newton, is
up there with the most Flemingian characters never actually created by
the original author. Let's also not forget the Isthmus City presidente,
who is played by Pedro Armendariz Jr., aka the son of the actor who
played Kerim Bey in From Russia. Such touches are what make the movie such a delight for long-time fans.

Licence To Kill was the last movie to pitch Bond to
his original adult audience, and despite producing one of the top five
movies in an esteemed series, its mistake was perhaps not recognising
how the movie character had expanded beyond the reach of his literary
equivalent. You'll never hear anything but praise from me for the
bravery of that attempt, though. Its supposed financial 'failure' also
deserves to be put in context for those using it as a stick to beat the
movie with: it grossed $156m on a $32m production budget, which puts it
more or less in line with A View To A Kill. Secondly, MGM was
undergoing some financial and executive instability at the time, leading
to the movie opening into a summer minefield of Batman, Back To The Future Part III, Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade and Lethal Weapon 2, all far bigger draws at the time than Bond. Problems behind the scenes with the advertising led to then-MGM president discarding a whole planned promotional campaign.
There was even a last minute title change from Licence Revoked due to the term being associated by American audiences with the loss of a driver's licence.

Even with its more restrictive age rating, Licence To Kill had
the misfortune of opening at a time when almost all the elements were
against it. That it still went on to make such a notable profit deserves
to be seen as an achievement in itself. Nevertheless, such
circumstances compounded to delay the next Bond movie
by a full six years, during which time Timothy Dalton departed for
pastures new and the collapse of Communism and the Berlin Wall led
speculators to suggest Bond might never return.
If Dalton hadn't been there in the first place to take the character
back to basics, perhaps they might have right. Fortunately, producer
Cubby Broccoli disagreed, as did a man who had been waiting eight years
for his turn with the PPK: Pierce Brosnan.

GOLDENEYE

First, some alternate history: had Bond not been sent into a six-year hiatus following Licence To Kill and
Timothy Dalton stayed on in the part, his third movie would reportedly
have sent him to Japan and Hong Kong in order to track down the people
responsible for blowing up a top secret research lab in Scotland. His Bond girl
would have been American industrial thief Connie Webb, and his enemies
would include a Yakuza assassin, a shady pair of identical twin Japanese
business owners and, erm, a robotic female assassin. (Or gynoid, but I
think I'm the last person on the planet to use that term). Frankly, from
the fascinating rundown offered by Bond site MI6-HQ,
the script sounds like it would have edged the series back towards the
more fantastic tone of the Moore era, so I'm pleased in a way that
Dalton's era ended with two fantastic movies and his legacy intact, as
much as I'd like to have seen more of him in the role.

Back in the real world, Pierce Brosnan had missed out on playing Bond in The Living Daylights by a matter of hours when his Remington Steele contract
was unexpectedly renewed - before the series was cancelled again
shortly afterwards, just to give the poor chap a second kick in the
teeth. With the political wrangling over MGM stabilising in the mid-90s,
Brosnan was given a second chance as Cubby Broccoli sought to revive
the series. Though I don't think Brosnan would have been the right man
to immediately follow Roger Moore, as the series needed Dalton to earn
it some serious dramatic credit back, there couldn't have been a better
choice to remind audiences of what they had been missing since Bond had vanished from their screens in 1989.

One of my biggest criticisms of him, that he plays to the Bond stereotype rather than creating a character of his own, is a strength in GoldenEye,
where a radical reinterpretation would almost certainly have led to
audience confusion and the series being shut down for good. Despite
being a bit too pretty-boy for my taste, Brosnan has buckets of charm
and an easy manner at tossing out one-liners. In that respect, if Dalton
was the heir apparent to (early) Connery's more serious Bond, Brosnan takes after Roger Moore, albeit with some much needed restraint. For now.

The
movie itself, named after Ian Fleming's estate in Jamaica (itself named
after a WW2 operation Fleming masterminded whilst working at Naval
Intelligence), manages its more outlandish elements with a straight
enough face to allow its plot to still be taken seriously. Xenia
Onatopp, for one, is an absolute joy and the series' most striking
villainess. I mentioned last week that televangelist Joe Butcher was a
great example of a Fleming-type character never actually created by the
author, and Onatopp is unquestionably top of that list, right down to
the weird sexuality which defined so many of Fleming's villains, for
better or worse. Famke Janssen is bombastically hot in the role, and
there are few straight men who wouldn't be delighted to accept death by
Janssen thigh-crushing. She play the character's uber-vamp sex appeal to
the hilt and steals every scene she's in, right up until an absolutely
perfect death and kiss-off line from Brosnan. ('She always did enjoy a
good squeeze.') The plot, about a disgruntled former MI6 agent seeking
revenge against Britain by detonating an EMP over London - after
stealing all the moneys from its banks - is pretty silly, but has enough
post-Cold War resonance to keep it on the straight and narrow, despite
Alan Cumming's gratingly awful satellite programmer, Boris. Sean Bean,
himself often mooted for the Bond part, is a great choice for the role of Alec, Bond's friend-turned-foe.

The Cold War elements are a sly riposte to everyone who said Bond couldn't
survive in the modern era, and demonstrates how intelligently the
series has evolved with changing times. Alec Trevelyan, a descendant of
the Lienz Cossacks, embodies the type of villain born from the collapse
of Communism, tying together disparate elements from the Soviet era
still bearing a grudge over the fall of their previous regime. Gottfried
John doesn't get much to do as General Ourumov, but represent an aged,
old-school Russian bitterly yearning for wars long since lost. Daniel
Kleinman's gorgeous title sequence make this post-Cold War theme
explicit, and Tina Turner's theme song harkens back to Shirley Bassey
without seeming old fashioned. Eric Serra's score is often the topic of
debate, although I like its mix of (then) modern synth tracks with more
sparse, Russian-sounding cues. (I'm no music analyst so those terms are
probably all wrong, but hopefully my point is clear when you actually
listen to the soundtrack). His choice of 'The Experience Of Love' for
the closing song is awful, but his gunbarrel sequence arrangement is
fantastic, almost as thrilling as the militaristic, bass-heavy version
which was such a perfect fit for Timothy Dalton's swansong.

GoldenEye is by no means perfect, particularly Isabella Scorupco's nondescript (and drearily dressed) Bond girl Natalya and Bond being given a gadget-laden car whose tricks he never uses (bad enough that it's a BMW), but once again, it was the right Bond for
the right time. Brosnan's performance was instrumental in taking the
character right back into the upper echelons of pop culture, the
villains are terrific, Judi Dench is an inspired hoot as M, there are
some great one-liners ('You don't need the gun, Commander' 'That depends
on your definition of safe sex') and the post-Cold War themes answer
every question about Bond's viability for a new
age with aplomb. Though the Brosnan era would quickly sink into bland
mediocrity and then outright catastrophe, this is a triumphant, vibrant
debut for an actor who perhaps always deserved better material than he
was given. Plus, it brought in a whole new generation of Bond fans courtesy of the greatest video game ever made, even if it likely resulted in just as many educations failed due to Slappers Only in the Complex.

TOMORROW NEVER DIES

I think Elliot Carver is a fantastic Bond villain.
I'm throwing that out there because it's probably the most contentious,
and therefore interesting, thing I have to say about Tomorrow Never Dies,
which for the most part is a middle of the road actioner as far as any
movie goes, let alone a series with such a strong identity as the Bonds.
It's not bad, but generally feels inert and lacking purpose. There's
little Bondian about it, other than a couple of diverting
gadgets and the obligatory scene where our hero strolls around in black
tie before getting in a fight. The best Bonds exaggerate
reality to make the villains that little bit more grotesque, the girls
that little bit more beautiful, the situations that little bit more
unusual. Where the Moore era too often took that notion to ludicrous
extremes, Tomorrow is the opposite, making even its big action set-pieces fall flat.

Jonathan Pryce's evil media mogul, though, is a clever spin on the megalomaniac figure who has populated so many Bond movies
to date. As he himself notes, the modern world is no longer controlled
by governments and armies, but communication. On its own terms, his
devising a scheme to start a global conflict just to get broadcasting
rights in China sounds excessive, but makes a kind of sense when seen
through Carver's eyes: one last territory to conquer before his
influence spans the entire world. If GoldenEye looked at how the world had changed for its heroes, Tomorrow tips
its hat towards how rapidly evolving technology requires a new breed of
supervillain. With all the revelations about the Murdoch empire over
the past year, the movie ironically feels more timely now that it did
when first released. You can just imagine Carver sitting before an
inquiry and saying it is the humblest moment of his life, before
returning to his office and ordering his international news bureaus to
start shovelling dirt on everyone who dared cross him. Critics often
moan that Carver isn't a larger-than-life figure in the Goldfinger vein,
but that's the point: he doesn't need to be physically domineering
because his network does the intimidation work for him. He's a slimy
little control freak, and while the big villains are fun, it's nice to
have expectations mixed up a little.

The movie's other strong
point is Michelle Yeoh, who may be wasted in a role giving her only one
martial arts scene, but still pulls off the tough girl role with more
charm than any other actress in the series to date. Despite her physical
prowess, Wai Lin mostly ends up just following Bond around,
but Yeoh is a constantly engaging screen presence despite her romantic
chemistry with Brosnan being almost nil. That might be because
Brosnan's Bond feels like he could be replaced
with just about anyone, compounded in the climactic scene aboard the
stealth boat, where he's running around firing dual machine guns like a
Terminator. Brosnan does his best and has a few enjoyable moments (he
and Desmond Llewellyn are always a great pair, and Bond's
boyish delight at his car's self-inflating tyres is wonderful), but is
asked to play a void of a character. He throws out a few half-hearted
quips, but this is a Bond reflecting the
sanitised sensibilities of his time. His 'filthy habit' line about a
cigarette-smoking henchman would make Fleming turn in his grave. There's
no edge, no vices, nothing to stir excitement other than an exceedingly
fancy dress sense.

An attempt to make his assignment more
personal by bringing in an old flame in the shape of Teri Hatcher's
Paris Carver doesn't ring true for a moment, since Hatcher is so stiff
in the role and, like Bond, lacking any discernable personality. Their big emotional reunion in Bond's hotel room, though accompanied by a lovely visual homage to Dr. No as
he waits for her in much the same way Connery awaited Professor Dent,
is meaningless because no context provided for why they seemingly share
such a strong connection (most of the 'facts' we're given about their
history come from the apparent lies Paris tells her husband), but
neither are remotely interesting as people. The scene where Bond later
discovers her body only manages to be interesting thanks to Vincent
Schiavelli's eccentric Dr. Kaufman, one of the movie's few actual
personalities. Naturally, he cops it after only a few minutes'
screentime, leaving us back with Stamper (whose actor, Gotz Otto, won
the part after describing himself as 'big, blond and German', thus
entirely summing the depth of his character) as lead henchman for the
remainder of the movie.

Of the gadgets, the remote controlled car
is a wonderful idea, but its abilities are taken to a ridiculous
extreme in the parking lot chase scene, with every enemy traps designed
explicitly to show off one of the car's tricks, including a buzz saw at
just the right height to cut through a taut cable. Why Bond would
then consider it acceptable to drive said car over the side of the
rooftop and down towards a street packed with civilians (certainly
injuring everyone inside the office it crashes into) beggars belief. The
much-publicised decision to swap Bond's PPK for
a more modern P99 is further proof of the movie's misguided
sensibilities: the PPK may be weak and old fashioned, but its shape is
intimately associated with the Bond character.
The P99, on the other hand, looks like any other handgun, costing the
movie yet more character in favour of tedious realism. I suspect
commercial interests were probably also at play, although have no idea
whether Walther actually sponsored the movie.

Tomorrow Never Dies isn't terrible by any stretch, but makes no attempt to break out of first gear and confuses modernising for whitewashing every trace of identity from Bond's
character. There's some good stuff in there - the baddie is pretty
interesting (to my mind at least), Michelle Yeoh does a terrific job
with a nothing character, the remote-controlled BMW is cool (again,
despite being a BMW), Judi Dench has a wonderful snapping turtle quality
as M and nails the movie's best line (in reference to an accusation of
her not having the balls for her job: 'Perhaps, but it means I don't
have to think with them all the time.') and the pre-credits sequence has
an amusing use of a fighter jet ejector seat - but while it's the kind
of movie I'll happily leave on in the background whenever it's on TV,
it's pretty rote as an actioner and especially anodyne as a Bond.

1 comment:

LTK was initially planned to be filmed in China, but the plans fell through. Probably a good thing what with Tienanmen Square.

GoldenEye was the first Bond movie I ever saw in full back in 1999 and it's thoroughly enjoyable. It's near the start of Sean Bean's long run of gruesome movie deaths, for one thing.

Re TND Carver is based more on Robert Maxwell (the line about a yacht accident) and William Randolph Hearst, but has been taken as a Murdoch satire. The bit about the President and a cheerleader became a great deal funnier the following year, what with Monica Lewinsky.